It may be spring time but our temperatures here have been jumping around like crazy. Last week I was wearing shorts and t-shirts with the thermometer registering all the way up at 89 degree F! Today? It's cloudy, drizzling, and 52F! What a difference. My garden is loving the rain though.

Tara is dressed for the cooler weather with a cashmere sweater and a long pencil skirt (with pockets! I love a skirt with pockets). She has knee high leather boots that are simple but classy.

Vet Tech Tale

Kaya, a couple days after we brought her home.

Today I'm going to tell you about mange. Yes: gross, disgusting, itchy mange. The last Tech Tale was about my second dog, Chiva (who had a broken leg). Our first dog came to us with a nasty case of Demodectic Mange.

Unlike other varieties of mange, this one is not contagious (except to other dogs with poor immune systems). It is caused by a mange mite called Demodex which crawls around in the hair follicles and causes the hair to fall out and the dog to be itchy. If left untreated it can result in a secondary skin infection.

When we brought Kaya home she was missing around 40% of her hair and her skin was infected, swollen and red nearly everywhere. She was 1 year old and had been suffering untreated for at least two months. There are a couple treatments for this type of mange, the one we followed meant a daily dose of medication until the mites are gone. It can take weeks to months!

One month into treatment. Her skin is healing and hair is starting to grow back.

Kaya also had to be on antibiotics for the skin infections she had. Within days she already looked better! Her skin wasn't so irritated, her scabby spots began to heal over (she was so covered with scabs when we first had her, friends wanted to change her name to Scabby!). A month into treatment her skin was recovering from the mites and we could see hair beginning to grow back. At two months she had no mites left and was declared healthy!

I know a sketch isn't half as interesting as a doll or dress, but to tide you over, here is a doodle of Ella (from my own version of Cinderella). She, like so many others, is a work-in-progress doll. I love to start projects, it's finishing them that's so difficult!

Even more exciting than a sketch, Meredith sent me her collection of Cora and Coridel, in color! They look amazing!